Monday, May 12, 2008

Family medical crisis

My apologies, but I've been helping to manage my father's care through his recent hospitalization. I will spare you the frustration and heartache of the details, other than to share the good news that he will be going home from the hospital later in the week.

Besides having someone you trust to make health care decisions if you are not able to, the health care proxy is someone the doctors and hospital staff can and will talk to about treatment and status. The government passed a law a number of years ago, called HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Among other things, it prohibits medical staff from discussing patient care without prior authorization from the patient. In an emergency situation, you may not be able to get information about a loved one's status unless you are the health care proxy.

With my father ill and out of state and the rest of my family medicine-naive, it falls to me to 'translate' what's happening into language they can understand. Because I am my father's health care proxy, physicians returned my calls and communicated with me about my father's care, even though he is (now) alert and oriented and able to make decisions for himself. The proxy allowed me to act as his advocate in a way I wouldn't have been able to otherwise.

Please. DO NOT WAIT for a medical emergency to have this important issue dealt with. You don't need a lawyer to draw up health care proxy papers. Most hospitals have the paperwork.

You can read samples of my novels (some in progress, some published) on Wattpad.

I've also been known to make pottery and give it away. :)

FYI: I have political biases. I am concerned with social justice, gender issues, and feminism. I will talk about this side by side with writing craft, pottery, and cute animal pictures.

P.S. Sadly, I know that the individuals this relates to are not the people reading this, so consider this my public venting. Most of the folks I have met on G+ have been interesting and wonderful; people I now count as my friends. However, I have increasingly been the recipient of private messages and emails from men, often not native English speakers, but not exclusively so, wanting to 'get to know me better'. These "hey baby" messages are from people who have never interacted with me, aren't in my circles, and have no connection with me or my interests. This is the internet version of the street cat-call and is at best, irritating, at worse, harassment. So I will not answer chat requests from anyone I do not recognize from my circles or from prior interactions on G+ posts.